


Fishers of Men

by kali



Category: The Borgias (2011)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kali/pseuds/kali
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aut Caesar aut nihil. The Duke of Valentinois makes a decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fishers of Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gentlezombie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlezombie/gifts).



> After reading your letter, I was struck by how many of the same things we love (Arbonne! Must-Have-More!) and while I chose to write for the Borgias (fandom-of-my-heart!), a bit of your Reluctant King Thing wove its way into this story, for which I have somewhat twisted history and Leonardo's robots (totally real robots!) to suit my purposes. I hope you will forgive this and will enjoy with my best wishes for the happiest of yuletides! <3

_Los Lobos_ ,1513

Midday, when the sun is highest, is the best time to catch _las viejas_ , the parrotfish that graze along the rocky bottoms of the sea floor. It is not midsummer, but this Spanish island named for the wolves of the sea is much warmer even than Valencia. It never grows cold in the Canary Islands, and so midwinter is well enough. He watches the fish, clothed in cardinal’s red and bishop’s purple, cluster round the cleverly ground paste of sea-urchins and sand that he has strewn before them. They cannot resist it; they are drawn to it like priests to paupers’ mites. So familiar, he thinks, so rapacious. 

“ _Venite post me_ ,” he mutters under his breath, softly enough that the fish will not hear, “ _et faciam vos fieri piscatores hominum_. Well, I chose not to follow, and now I catch fish instead of men.”

The sun glints whitely off the azure water and he wishes, briefly, that he had a spare hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. But he does not; one hand, the weaker, must hold tight to the glass-bottomed box, his _mirofondos_ , through which he observes the school. The other hand, which used to hold his sword, now clings tightly to the rod. Instead of a legend, this weapon is etched with a dried stingray tail that lends the whole length of cane the sensitivity of his fingertips, all the way down to the barbed iron hook, where a crab is cunningly pierced as bait. 

The hook was expensive, but nothing else will do to catch the fish; their teeth rip through anything weaker. He almost admires them for that. Once one bites, he must whip it out of the water on the instant, to avoid startling the others. Only then can he return to try his luck once more. It is delicate work; it needs a strong wrist and a clear eye. Even months after he had come to this island, he could not do it, he remembers; at first, he had been too weak, of course. 

***

He does not recall the day, only that it had been many weeks since they’d taken shelter in the abandoned Phoenician lighthouse, its white, crumbling stones rising squatly over the volcanic rock and tiny lake of an island so small that even the Barbary pirates seemed to think it was too paltry to sustain life. It had been hours, days, weeks of lying silently sweltering within the cylindrical shelter, listening to the yellow-legged gulls scream his pain and loss in the distance. When he could once more be alone, could feed himself, could move a little, food was quietly left for him, and water, and he did not question from where they came, or his companion’s comings and goings.

He does remember it was evening, though. He had disposed more quickly than usual of a bowl of fish stew that had far more broth than meat in it. Finished, he had found the other man staring at him. He was still not quite used to that clear-eyed glance that seemed to pierce through him completely, without deference, now. 

“What?” he had rasped, finally, uncomfortably, his voice hoarse with salt air and disuse. 

“That is the last of the broth.”

“Then make more,” he said shortly, turning away from those hawk-like eyes and shifting slightly to try and find a more comfortable place on the burlap sail. There was no point in conversation, after all. 

“There is no more.”

Then there was a long silence, during which he waited for the rest of the thought. Nothing was forthcoming. “Well?” he asked finally, irritated at having to turn back again, to feel, to become involved. He watched as the other man turned a strangely wrought iron hook over and over, with his careful, murderer’s hands. “Do I care? What do dead men need with broth?”

“Your wounds are healing. You are not dead. If you would eat,” he had been told, without emotion, ”you must find food.”

He’d been appalled for a moment, wished for a lash or whip, to reply suitably; he was a prince, after all, and how dare anyone address him in such a way, but then the sense of it struck him, with his surroundings, and he found himself laughing, bitterly, true enough, but nevertheless laughing for the first time in what felt like years. 

Micheletto paid no attention; he simply came forward and pulled him up, not ungently, gave him his shoulder to lean on, and led him onto the beach. He explained the art of grinding the sea urchins; the baiting of the crab onto the iron barbs; the glass box; the casting of the rod. 

He was slow to learn, as he never had been before in living memory. But he was dead now, he supposed, and perhaps it was this that made the difference. The wounds did not help, but it was more than that, even when he could move his limbs sufficiently—never with the ease they had once had, true, but he could move them and make them obey his will—even after being patiently instructed in the way of it, this work still had reminded him far too much of home, and life, and he did not want to remember.

At first, even rowing himself out in the tiny pinnace was a feat, but Micheletto made no move to help him. When he could finally manage to maneuver the boat, still the graceful, precise casting was beyond him; but the gulls’ cries no longer kept him from sleep when he collapsed at the end of the day. Despite Micheletto’s warning, although he still caught nothing, he continued to find food and water waiting for him, but he was too tired to question how or why. It was only after he’d captured his first fish, and then his fifth, and his twelfth, that he realized that he was not so worn out as he had been.

One day, he’d rowed out as usual, but then as he sat there, waiting, he felt a prickle of curiosity, as if his senses were limbs that that fallen asleep and were now painfully awakening. Where did Micheletto go every day, while he fished the rocky shoals? Where did the food come from? Water might come from the small lake, but where did the food come from? The occasional barrel of rough wine? Where had he got that iron hook? He gave up much earlier than usual and went back to the lighthouse to wait.

From the top of the shattered tower, he could see Micheletto winding his way up the hill, water streaming from his hair and body as if he had just this minute been swimming in the ocean, naked but for a loincloth, carrying a basket over one shoulder and a barrel in the other hand. The scars from his whip still marked Micheletto’s back, as they would until the flesh rotted from his bones. He did not know what to think of that, especially since he himself now bore so many more scars and mutilations than the other man. Only his face and groin remained relatively unmarked. He supposed he should be happy that he’d not been castrated, while they were at it. 

He came down to meet Micheletto at the entrance to the shelter, knowing that in shadow as he was, his voice might—possibly, this was Micheletto after all—come as a shock. But of course it did not, and it was Micheletto who broke the silence, who did not wait respectfully for him to speak first.

“You’re back early,” he observed, reaching for a rag that hung on the line and roughly toweling his hair. 

“I am,” he said. “Where have you been? What have you been doing? What is all that you are carrying?”

One corner of Micheletto’s mouth quirked upward; on another man, it might have been a smile. “You are full of questions today.”

“What if I am?”

“Some might say that dead men ask no questions,” said Micheletto, his voice dry. 

“You quote yourself,” he said, finding the words for once not unpleasant on his tongue. “It was you who told me that, when we killed the lords of the Romagna.”

“Surely it was you, who said that and not I. You are the will; I am but the hand.”

“Then answer me,” he ordered and saw Micheletto smile once more as if pleased.

“I was fighting,” he replied.

“Men?” he asked, his pulse quickening.

“Not men. There are monk-seals that patrol these coasts; some call them wolves of the sea. I spear them, and drag their carcasses ashore. Their pelts are worth something; seal-skin has been traded on Fuertaventura. Thus, the barrels of wine and the baskets of fruit and bread.“

“How did you know this?”

“We landed on Fuertaventura first, do you not recall? When we took ship with the Berber pirates from the coast of Spain. They told me of the seals and the fish, and the small village at the harbor. Then I bought the iron blades and the pinnace, and we settled here.”

“How did you buy them? You must have spent all you had on the passage; the pirates would make sure enough of that. You surely did not kill them all.”

“I do not kill without a purpose,” Micheletto said brutally, “either yours or my own. Their deaths would have served no one.”

“So, then?”

“Perhaps ‘bartered’ would be a better term than ‘bought’,” Micheletto said calmly. “Is this any different from all the other ways I have used my body in your service? They racked me, you know, in Milan and in the Castel Sant’Angelo, to try to find out what happened to you, to tell Signor Leonardo’s secret.”

He sat down on the ground, gracelessly, bowed his head. “What is Leonardo’s secret, Micheletto, do you know it?”

“I do. But they do not.”

“Who else knows the story?”

“Signor Leonardo has written it in cypher to a fair lady, the Duchess of Ferrara, a fairy tale to amuse her, the story of a prince that was not born, but made, a prince with a face that all recognized the length and breadth of France and Italy, for it rivaled Lucifer the morning-star for beauty. But even though he could move, and fight, this prince had no heart, only the springs of a clock, and so when he was found, he was left for dead.”

He felt as if something were choking him, as if each sword cut were reopening, blazing like flame across his body. “Spare me, Micheletto, have pity.” 

“Pity is not my trade, as I think you know. The prince was left for dead, in Viana,” he continued remorselessly. “He had a body of plaster and bones of metal, this clockwork duke, who was speared with forty wounds, because he rode out before the Ides of March, alone, dead, and surely heartless. For no one who possessed a heart would leave his guards, his _condottiere_ , those who love him and would have given their last drops of blood for him, like a thief in the night. No one with a heart could have been so foolish as to fight an army alone, courting the certainty of death.”

“How was he saved?”

“He was not saved. Remember, you are dead.”

He felt his eyes moisten. “She knows? That I chose--”

“Yes,” Micheletto said brutally. “She knows it all. I would not have Dona Lucrezia suffer lies; I asked Signor Leonardo to tell her himself, how you had asked him to make you a moving statue, a knight in your image that could move in your place; how when we found you’d left without guards, we went after you, taking it with us, replacing one with the other before they realized who you were and returned for your body. How while you had breath, you commanded that we tell no one you still lived, not even her.”

“And you told her anyway,” he said, his rage rising. 

“Her grief is legendary. They speak of it with hushed voices through all Europe. She did not speak for days after she was brought the news of your death in Viana. No one doubts her sorrow; it would be impossible.”

“How could you hurt her so?”

“How could _you_?” Micheletto asked pointedly. “It was your choice to die. Even the pope did not dare put Leonardo to the question; he’s too afraid of Francois of Valois for that. I was not so lucky, but Signor Machiavelli had me released after I was racked in the Castel Sant’Angelo for my knowledge of Leonardo’s sorcery, though that gained them nothing. He knows, too, that you failed. That you lived. Four people, that is all, including myself. For all else, Il Valentino, the prince with no heart, is buried in Navarre. It was Dona Lucrezia who sent word that I should bring what was left of you here. She said that you once spoke of a peaceful life, in a fishing village, where no one would know you. She called it Arcadia, and so here we are, my lord.”

“Do not call me that any longer. I am not a lord. I am worthless, not even a fisherman. My kingdom is gone, my Italy, my dream. I am but a whore’s bastard, as they always said. I am no lord.”

“What am I to call you then?’ Micheletto asked. “Cesare?”

He flung up a hand as if it were a shield. “Not that! Either Caesar or nothing, and _I chose nothing._ ” Each word was torn from him and when he finished, he bit his lip till the blood came.

“They eat the parrot-fish, you know, the seals, so even while your back has been turned, I have been easing your way.”

“I tell you my pain, and you talk of seals, Micheletto?”

“I know your pain, Cesare, because I know you. I have been used by you and betrayed by you. I have betrayed you in my turn. I have left you and I have come back to you. I have kept your secrets. I have cherished those whom you loved and tortured those you did not. You begged for your death, and I granted it. You clung to your life. I have given you that, too, as far as I could. And you have chosen not to rule, you have failed, but Cesare is still your name, this island is still your kingdom, and I still your servant. And I shall be here with you, till the true death finally takes us, whether by storm or pirates or sickness or hunger.

Cesare looked up. “Why? Why do you do all this?”

“Do you need to ask, my lord?”

“No, I do not.” He shook his head. “But you shall have nothing for your trouble, Micheletto, no recompense for your loyalty. Dead men have no hearts, as you say, and so they cannot love. I least of all.”

“Neither can dead men fish, my lord, and yet you caught ten yesterday.”

“It was twelve,” Cesare corrected him without thinking.

Micheletto laughed. “I think you will live again, Cesare. If not today, then tomorrow. Or perhaps sometime after that. If Christ can return to life, why not you?”

“This is blasphemy,” Cesare said, laughing as well, “and you are a sinner.”

“I am,” Micheletto admitted. “Shall I confess to you? I have murdered; I have whored and been with whores; I am a sodomite; I am a traitor. We are told the greatest commandment is to have no other gods before Him, and I have worshipped not a god, but rather one man. Only the lowest pit of hell will do for me.”

“A traitor? If you are Judas, my assassin, then you should have betrayed me with a kiss.”

“I am here to remedy the lack, if you wish it.” 

Cesare nodded, and so Micheletto knelt down beside him, took his untouched face between his hands, and kissed him.

“I am dead and so I do not love you, my Micheletto,” he said roughly, when he could speak again, but he held the other man so hard, his hands belied his words, as his nails ripped into old scars. “And I am no longer young, or beautiful. Only broken and empty, like a crushed shell upon this beach.”

“I do not care. I have never been young,” Micheletto said, “and I have never been beautiful. But I have always been yours, living or dead. And you shall have me, if you will.”

And so he had. 

The days passed, and Cesare learnt to capture forty fish in a day, without putting a single one to flight. Micheletto wrestled seals and killed them, and they sold or traded fish for what else they needed. 

At night they battled in each other’s arms, as moonlight shone through the cracks of their broken lighthouse, illuminating the scars and bruises that mottled their nakedness. Their work-roughened hands were never gentle with one another. Cesare could not bear softness and so Micheletto did not offer it. Often he did not even want to, for Cesare was used to taking mastery, not being gifted with it. 

Slowly, he learned to live again.

***

Loaded with his vibrant red and purple catch, he swings the boat onto the beach, where Micheletto waits, as quietly as if he were a man of peace. He does not rise to help Cesare with the boat, simply watches as he slides it onto the sand with a mighty heave. The fire waits; tonight they will wrap the fish in leaves and feast on their roasted white flesh.

Cesare sits down next to him. For some time, they do not speak. “I have been thinking of sending a letter,” he says finally, breaking the silence.

“Oh?” says Micheletto. “To whom would you write?”

“To all those who loved the heartless prince who is buried in Viana,” he replies. “It is hard to love someone who is dead, so perhaps my letter would cheer their mourning.”

“What would this letter say?”

“Three words only. ‘He has risen.’”

Micheletto’s teeth flashed in a knife-edge smile. “Surely, you do not mean, my lord, to suggest this prince is the resurrected God.” 

“Only to those eyes that would understand it rightly.”

“And how would you sign such a letter?” he asks.

Cesare smiles. “I would not need to sign it; all those who would read it would know who it was from and be glad.”

“Perhaps you have forgotten that I cannot read, my lord.” 

“It is fortunate, then, that I need not waste time in writing it to you and teaching you to read it. For you already know all that I have been, and all that I am, not to mention all that I would say, do you not, Micheletto?”

“Yes, my lord,” he says. “I do. And, now, finally, so do you.”

“Even when I am buried in Navarre? When I have failed at all I set my hand to? When only the fish tremble at my approach? When I have become nothing? Do you love me still, Micheletto?”

“Even then,” Micheletto says, “for you are still Cesare.”

_end_


End file.
